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Internet GURU

Photo: Vipin Chandran

Sunny side up Alexis Leon, author, at his Kakkanad home

A 90-year-old Gujarati gentleman was gifted a digital camera by his son in the United States (U.S.). He went clicking…clicking… Now, how the hell do I connect this darned thing to the laptop, the gutsy guy wondered. He dashed off a mail t o Alexis Leon, ‘that man who wrote the book, ‘Internet for Everyone.’ This query and many such mails that writer Alexis Leon received is the force behind his almost-finished book, ‘Surviving in the Digital World.’ “It’s for pensioners and older people who have taken to the digital world,” says Alexis sitting at the centre of a spacious, majestic, air-conditioned study at Kakkanad, Kochi, from where he reaches out to the world from his computer.

The walls have taken a back seat and books have taken over. Other gadgets and artefacts sit pretty beside the books in the room where the sign of military order prevails, where dust is alien. “That is thanks to Mathews,” Alexis gives credit to his brother, co-author of many of his books.

IT and management are the pet subjects of this Industrial Engineer who passed his B.Tech with a first rank from the College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram, and also his M.Tech with flying colours. Of the 40 books he has written so far, ‘Internet for Everyone’ has sold the most.

He actually wrote it for a young relative who wanted to know more about the Net. A book was not his aim. An editor from a publishing house saw the printouts lying around and felt it was so well written that it could be made into a book. Today, ‘Internet for Everyone’ has sold nearly 2, 00,000 copies and still selling. Students in Africa, Europe and Asia are studying his books in college, both IT and management students. Top international publishers such as Tata McGraw-Hill (India) and Artech House (U.S.), have published many of his books. His ‘A Guide to Software Configuration Management’ which he wrote in 2000 was the Artech House bestseller for two years. In 2004 the second edition of that book was published which is also a bestseller.

‘Fundamentals of IT’ (Second Edition) has 13 new chapters and ‘Fundamentals of Computing and Programming’ (co-author) are complete. They are under printing and will be released in the first half of July. ‘ERP Demystified’ (Second Edition) and ‘Enterprise Resource Planning’ (Second Edition) are the latest books he has written. Alexis is also almost done with writing a quaint book, a book on writing a book! As he had been doing the indexing of his own books, which is a thoroughly professional job which many technical writers leave to others, Alexis thought about this book, to teach people how to go about writing books and even to negotiate a contract. “I have also done aspects of book publishing from copy editing, typesetting, indexing, artwork, cover design and that is the reason why I decided to write the book,” he explains. In his early days as an author, there had been many unpleasant experiences and this book is an attempt to save others from such heartburns.

Alexis and his brother have started their own consultancy services offering consultancy in all areas related to computer and the Internet, including website design and development and a publishing house, Win Leon Publishing Private Ltd in Chennai.

So, how did this 42-year-old achieve all this? Alexis Leon is an efficient CEO who turned round his own life, as one does a company, doing badly. A bad accident 24 days short of D-day, his wedding, which paralysed his body from his chest down, almost crushed his soul. But yes, to borrow this oft repeated phrase, as nothing else is apt here, like a phoenix, he rose from the ashes and built his future, as if from infancy, all over again, from age 27. The pillar on which he leant on was his family: chief among them, his quiet brother, Mathews Leon, an engineer, who engineered his life to be inexorably linked with his brother’s. Alexis lives with Mathews and his family in Kakkanad, though he hails from Muttuchira, where his parents live, where Alexis spent his childhood in the large open spaces in rural freedom.

The wheelchair cannot curtail Alexis’ zest for life and stop him from counting his blessings. The more than 10,000 books he has collected over the years keep him excellent company. Not only his study but in his bedroom too he has books for company: Gibran, Nietzsche, Jeffrey Archer, M. T.Vasudevan Nair, Thakazhi. He buys books online, mostly. Malayalam books are very few, ‘because I have not been recommended good new writers.’

Movies? “I love ‘adi padams,”’ he laughs, whether they be Mohanlal’s, Mammooty’s or Suresh Gopi’s. And war movies too.

But when it comes to music it is not light stuff. Kunnakkudi’s violin is a favourite. Carnatic, Hindustani, Western classical and old Hindi and Malayalam movie songs. “My only regret now is that I could not learn the violin. Somehow, I missed that and now, my shoulder hurts so I cannot try,” he says, without rancour. Reviewing books is another pastime, on Pegasus Book Club of which he is webmaster. Looking at a copy of ‘ERP Demystified,’ he says it has been translated into Chinese (Mandarin). “I can only look at it like a picture book,” he jokes. Alexis Leon’s sense of humour is intact, you realise, the panacea needed to sail safely on the high sea of life.

His id: alexis@alexisleon.com

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